DYKWIA

MAG seem to be making as difficult as possible for "Private Hire" companies such as Uber. Unless it's their preferred company Arrow Cars of course (who never seem to have any cars available when I land).

Uber are now forced to pick up from the multi-story car parks in T1 & T3 (not sure about T2). So, the app says "proceed to the short stay car park". Which is great... except you have no idea which floor the driver will be on.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to inform that at T1, the Uber drivers are on the top floor (roof level 13). In T3 they are all on the top floor (roof level 5). The reason for this is that they lose mobile coverage when inside the car park, so can't communicate with passengers.

I was speaking to a driver a couple of week ago, and he was telling me that they can cancel a ride after 5 minutes of the passenger hasn't turned up. They get £9 for this (and this gets passed on to the passenger), so some unscrupulous drivers are not even contacting passengers. If they can't find them on level 13 - tough, cancel the ride, claim £9 and wait for the next customer.

Also, the pick up charge that appears on the Uber receipt is now £6.50. Not quite sure where that comes from (I'll be raising it with Uber CS). My trip home has gone from £16 to £24 in the space of a few months (with no surge).

Ikaz

Just for info, I parked at the T1 car park this week (not the drop off one, the multistory), and was charged £4 for up to 30 mins, not sure why it would be more expensive for Uber...

IAN-UK

Yup. My journey into central Manchester almost doubled from around £15. A similar high rate shows on the app for trips to the airport. At that price I'm happy to take an extra 20 minutes wandering through the scenic delights of Wythenshawe on the tram.

Silver Fox

That is bloody ridiculous that Uber can charge £9 and there are plenty of people complaining that they have been cancelled many times in our company. Do that 12 times an hour and that is a nice hourly rate. Yes I know that is an exaggeration but we all go now with Arrow because everything else is a pain - and because they have basically what amounts to a monopoly they are bloody arrogant and unfriendly I find. Uber does not list MAN here either which makes me wonder about their motives behind this too. I don't have to go to MAN that often, but I always found the traffic around there awful when being dropped off or picked up. The train is now becoming an option for me to look into over this. I'm not going to use Uber with that £9 potential charge.

DYKWIA

This is response that I got back from Uber CS :-I think what they're saying is that because they now wait in the car park (rather than coming from outside the airport), they are charging the rate for 1 hour - which seems to be £6 from the MAN website. So, it's more convenient because there are generally always cars available, rather than having to wait 5-10 minutes like in the old system.

Silver Fox

Did they narrow down exactly where they wait in the car park or is it random? Does the driver tell you what floor/bay/whatever? I have never been to the car parks in MAN so I am not familiar with the layout.

DYKWIA

No, the App doesn't tell you anything other than meet at the short-stay car park. It was only because the the driver called me that I knew to got to L13. At BRU, the app tells you to go L4 or L5 (your choice) - it should do the same at MAN.

diversmanchester

Update - Walk to SAS Radisson Hotel and book it from the front doot. The drivers love you for it. The other option right now is to take the shuttle bus to the car rental village. However for the drop off if flying out they have cottoned on to this and issue tickets from the rental returns desk to get you on the bus to the terminal.

simon stingray

Manchester airport have now provided a holding area for Uber (and other private hire taxis) just off the airport where they can wait for free until they get allocated a job. This is an open air car park so no mobile phone reception problems. The driver should call you to confirm the pickup point or you can call the driver as soon as the job is confirmed.

When the driver gets allocated the job then he/she goes to the pickup car park at the appropriate terminal where a car park fee is charged to the driver and added to the customers bill.

The pickup areas are as follows:

Terminal 1: Open air arrivals car park. Turn right when you exit arrivals, cross the road at the zebra crossing located beneath the glass sky bridge and turn right and follow the signs & crowd to pickup car park.
Terminal 2: Turn left when you exit arrivals and follow the signs for T2 West car park / pickup. This will take you along a long passageway to the new West multi-storey car park. The pickup point is on the ground level as soon as you enter the car park.
Terminal 3: Turn left when exiting T3 and cross at the zebra crossing. The pickup area is Level 2 or 3 of the multi-storey car park directly opposite the terminal. Drivers cannot collect passengers outside the terminal-passengers can only be dropped off here. Drivers are threatened with a £100 fine so they must collect you in the multi-storey. Call the driver to confirm which level they will go to.

Hope that may help someone.

DYKWIA

And MAN has succeeded in making it even worse.

After a great arrivals process - no queue and immigration and bags off in 10 minutes - I booked an Uber from T1. As said above, they now pick up at the T1 arrivals car park.

There are 4 "aisles" through the car park, all leading to one pinch point at the end where passengers are waiting. This area is right next to the exits. Of course, drivers also need to pay for the pick up, and the machines for this are also in the same area. So, you get drivers going to the barrier, getting out and walking to the machines and the joining the queue to pay. All this is then blocking the exits.

At least the cab drivers were parking up away from the exits to get their tickets.

The whole thing is a farce... not helped by the fact that 1 of the 3 barriers was out-of-order. It took us about 15 minutes to get out (this is "on ride" with Uber don't forget). The driver said it's often much worse.

DYKWIA

And it's changed again....

I arrived at T1 last last night, and went to the short stay car park where Uber have been picking up for the last few months (this is where the Uber App directs you). It seemed very quiet, but it was after midnight.

Anyway, I got a call from the driver saying he'd arrived, but was at a new pick up point. He could actually see me, but he was in the "new" multi-story part of the the T1 arrivals. He said that yesterday was the first day that this was in use.

I'm not sure what it will be like when it's busy, but it does seem to be a bit of an improvement. There is now only an exit barrier, and the "price" is determined by number plate recognition. I think there were 5 exit barriers.